Amazon Software Development Engineer II interview questions

I was contacted by a recruiter through StackOverflow Careers and an initial phone interview was set. The initial phone interview was with the recruiter and was just a check to see if I was interested. A technical phone screen was scheduled next. The technical phone screen was conducted with the help of collabedit. I was a bit rusty with my Data Structures and Algorithms that time so I was a bit shaky but managed to answer the question with some hints from the interviewer. The interviewer was very courteous and answered all my questions afterwards. I was emailed after a couple of days by Amazon requesting an on-site interview. They handled all the logistics(flights, accommodation,etc). The famous Amazon on-site interview did not disappoint. About 6 Amazonians interviewed me over the span of around 4 or 5 hours. I've enjoyed the whole experience a lot.

The hiring and interview process is strict. The company is short on people, but doesn't compromise on their hires. That's good, because there is no empire-building tendency yet. They like to focus on "design" which gets a bit annoying. They look for whether you ask them the "right" questions, so I failed my first interview, where I began designing the algorithm. I later realized that the solution is somewhat immaterial so long as you ask a lot of key questions about the system - remember the questions are for the interviewer to know that you thought about something, so even if you know the answer, ask.